The Trials of Maria

By: Wax the Velvet

I unsheathed my sword. It wasn’t any type of sword I’ve ever seen in my previous life. It was more like a stiff metal rod with a sharp tip. There was some fancy name for this sword, that I’m sure Alina knew, but even delving into her memories for the last couple of days, I didn’t remember it. But I did know how to use it. It was a fairly common officer’s blade within the babylonian army. A fact that I “remembered” as I was leaving the cave. The soldiers had regular blades that could cut through shields and armor, but officer’s like Alina had to have some sort of magic ability, and used these swords. The reason? Why was I thinking of all of that? I was about to go kill a monster or die. I felt like Alina would never have this inner monologue when she was facing danger, she was all concentration. All deadly concentration.

I took out my pistol, which was a mana pistol. It was a fairly problematic piece of equipment. I breathed a couple of quick breaths and felt unnaturally calm, was it the blessing I received a moment ago? I looked at Morgan and she gave me a small smile. “So you wouldn’t be nervous on your first hunt” she said in a shy voice. So she did some magic, or something, to calm me down. Interesting. What was I thinking about? How the pistol was a problematic piece of equipment. Oh, fuck it. I don’t care. The pistol was good enough. Alina was happy with it, and it was well made. There was no reason to wait. I was going in.

Morgan was behind me as we exited the cave. I could already see the bear. The surety I felt completely dissipated. No, not correct. Whatever Morgan did remained, but it was definitely weaker at the sight of the great monster. My parents always told me I was a troublemaker. I was doing worse than making out with Grace, than all the lying I did since coming into this world. I got myself into real trouble. Now, was time to see if I can get myself out of it, too.

The first part of our plan was to get Morgan to a safe spot far away from the bear. I was doubtful any spot around the bear was safe, but I was ultimately wrong. It was not as hard as I imagined, and I started distracting it right away. I started firing at the bear, sort of in the way you would see in old westerns, with one hand cocking the trigger after each shot. I think it was called fanning the hammer, but in my case it was more like the touch was transferring mana and loading the ethereal bullets. I was fairly good at it, though maybe not as fast as those wild west types; It made a lot of noise and I hit the bear multiple times.

The mana caused a lot of disturbance in the air, and for a moment I smelled a strange sweet, pungent, metallic smell.. After the disturbance cleared, I could see that my shots didn’t fully penetrate its fur and hide. Still, I thought I saw some blood, so I might have been mistaken. The bear’s dark brown color made it hard to be sure. Couldn’t it have been a two-story polar bear instead?

The real objective of this maneuver was to allow Morgan to flank him, and it definitely worked. She was truly beneath its notice. Especially with that annoying gnat there making all that noise and shooting what the bear would consider a BB gun. At least I hoped so. Did it notice her and let her run because it was planning something? I didn’t know how clever this beast was. There was no reason to assume it had the intelligence of a normal bear back home. It sure showed un-animal-like persistence.

We agreed that I was going to be the diversion, Morgan was going to set up a big spell, and once she was ready she would signal me and I would run away.

A big spell like that was a multi-step process. You know, drawing a circle, etching runes, or letters or whatnot, chaining secondary spells, building momentum. Well, she explained it all earlier, but I didn’t get much. Sorry. If it’s any consolation, I’m not sure Alina would have gotten any of it either. Well, it was of some consolation to myself, at least.

I still wanted to deal as much damage as possible, and besides, who knew how resilient this thing was? We needed all the damage we could generate. I also wanted to make the monster as stationary a target as possible, so it wouldn’t be able to escape the blonde hottie’s spell. I was supposed to slow it down, impede it, maim it or every other option in the book. That was the plan we cooked up. Well, it was based on a more-detailed plan Morgan and Alina cooked up some time earlier, that was too complicated for me to remember.

The monster was roaring in pain and charging towards me. Even though the pistol was just a distraction, it didn’t mean that I couldn’t try to make something of it. I was a good shot, if I could say so myself. I’m not talking about Alina, I’m talking about me, Maria. My parents were into the second amendment, and even though my dad, god bless him, never allowed me to drink coffee, alcohol, meet friends after school, own a smartphone or stay up late, he sure did teach me to shoot. My big bro, who was my best friend in the entire world, used to be a fantastic shot, and we would sometimes go to the range and he would train me. What If I managed to shoot its eye? That would sure hurt this bear.

Pistols are not the most accurate weapon, but I still took my shots. Bang bang bang, and missed it. Well, I already knew it was probably not going to be the cincher, but it would have been damn convenient if I could kill it then and there.

What about Alina’s other tricks? Mana infusion. Not just her trick. I think most hybrid magic fighters use some sort of mana infusion. Mana could be infused into body parts to boost them, which is what I did when I infused mana into my legs and, well, legged it. This is why Morgan could outrun me the last time. I jumped into the air like some olympic… jumper and started going ham. The bear was fast, but not magically so, or he would have caught me easily. I went through the process of shooting and retreating, just to move him away from Morgan. This was all well and good, but I needed to do more damage, this was hardly scratching it. I holstered my pistol and held my sword in both hands, infusing crackling electric mana into it. I could feel the rod of the sword heating up. People in this world thought that it’s just the properties of steel. In most cases, that heat would be the only thing you’d achieve from running electricity through a steel rod, but this was magic, and it was electricity-type mana. The sword started turning white, instead of red. It covered the now edged blade on what was otherwise just a metal rod.

I was feeling pretty confident when I noticed how I could outrun this behemoth, but in order to do real damage I needed to come in contact with the thing. I steeled myself for it. I may have had Alina’s skills, but I could only borrow so much of her confidence. I felt like I was close to crying, but still managed to run towards the galloping bear.

You know how you can’t control your thoughts? For a moment, I thought, as I was watching its majestic pounce, ‘what a beautiful way to die’. What a foreign thought it was. It sounded like something Conan the barbarian would think. Was it my own, or was it the influence of Alina? I didn’t know. Instead of dying I, like a metadore, slashed and poked the bear’s left leg several times in quick succession with the shimmering sword. It looked like a toothpick in comparison to the bear’s monstrous size, but the magical sharpness, the electricity, and everything else managed to give it a serious gash, and it went berserk. I could see blood dripping out of its wound. Not enough, but it was a start. This was going to take time.

I gave myself some breathing room, cancelled the boosting on my legs and rested for a second. Boosting was a useful “skill”, but it took its toll. If I would have boosted myself non-stop, I would have destroyed my legs.

The bear, whose every step trampled trees and caused small craters, managed to halt its gallop in the other direction. It began turning, which it was doing remarkably awkwardly, but I was already running towards it. I got a couple of hits in, mainly to its back and hind legs, and managed to score another more serious hit. This time, a shallow cut on its back right leg. I would have preferred to always hit the same spot, but I knew that I needed to take whatever successes I could.

Having a fairly easy time so far, I must have been too confident, because I totally overextended. I was running away, but this time not fast enough and it was about to strike me. I misty stepped. A move Alina also perfected. As far as she knew, most people could only move vertically and the activation was slightly slow, but Alina could move horizontally as well. As it was about to catch me, I moved to its head. Also a big mistake. Again, I had thought I might be able to end it, but the bear noticed something was happening, and dodged the attempt to skewer its left eye. Instead, it rammed me aside.

For a moment I couldn’t breathe. It was as if my lungs were stuck. I knew in my heart that no one could get up after this kind of hit. I was finished. I was about to die a virgin again. I couldn’t believe it. I should have followed Alina’s “advice” and slept with Julia, and Morgan if I could. She was living a dangerous life and living each day like it was her last, chasing every last pleasure. What a wicked life, what a sweet wicked life.

I did not in fact die, though. I somehow managed to stand a moment later. The bear’s running momentum preventing it from capitalizing more on the damage it caused me. I got back to leg boosting, mainly so I could stop wobbling, and got back into the fray. Everything had to move fast from now on, Please complete your preparations quickly, Morgan. I silently prayed. I didn’t have the stamina, or enough bones for a prolonged conflict.

I took a gander at Morgan, who seemed to be done setting up and already chanting the spell. Good work, girl. I decided not to continue this faux jousting competition we were in and tried to intercept it as it was performing its awkward turn. I misty stepped, this time the normal way to get close, as fast as possible. Alina would ration spells, but I felt that I could use as many as I wished. I don’t know why.

I poked the same back leg as before, and dodged as the bear tried to throw me off or stomp me. I scored more shallow cuts, but felt like I couldn’t dodge its next kick. This time I used Shield, which dampled the blow and allowed me to roll. I wanted to yell “parkour”, but I hardly had a breath in my lungs. I didn’t feel perfect after receiving the blow, even with all my maneuvering, but I somehow managed to get up in time to harass the bear’s other foot.

I was at it for a while. Maybe two or three minutes of dodging, shielding, cutting and thrusting. I felt like it was working, but I still knew I was on borrowed time. I was starting to feel drained. The pain, which must have been masked by adrenaline till now (or something like that, that’s what they always say in the movies), started to get to me.

I decided something had to change. I was feeling so much worse. I was running on empty. Maybe Alina was better than me and could somehow make this fight work, but I sure as heck didn’t. I was on my last legs and even though the monster was maybe slightly limping, I didn’t hurt its mobility all that much. In order to cinch it, I needed to hurt the dang thing.

What could I do? Me, Alina, either of us, both of us? Could I improvise a new spell? Maybe if I spent five years practicing. Alina definitely couldn’t. She had tutors and though she did learn to bend the rules a little, it seems like those were skills she developed over years. She became a soldier before I even went to high school.

I did have something. Some inking of an idea. Maybe not exactly an improvisation, something that Alina could have done if she understood the nature of the world better. I did understand what electricity was more than her. More than anyone in this world, maybe. I was sort of okay at science, what little my parents allowed me to study, that is. Electricity was essentially electrons moving around quickly. The edge of the blade was made from Electricity mana, so it must mean there were electrons moving around in the edge, right? What if I made the edge much thinner? As thin as a single electron. Wouldn’t it make the edge extremely sharp? Wouldn’t it split mere molecules in half? I wasn’t sure, but I knew I needed to pull a miracle out of a bag. Or a rabbit out of a… whatever! I need to bring this fudging bear to its fudging knees. Preferably surviving to tell the tale!

I ran around some more, trying to confuse the bear and flank it as much as possible. Its hind legs were still much less accurate in their kicks than its front paws and head. I concentrated on making the blade as thin as possible, just like I planned. I stopped seeing the mana on the blade. I could see only a slight disturbance in the air. For some reason it felt much less taxing than earlier. I could feel mana draining, but at a much lower rate. I certainly hoped this idea made sense. If it didn’t, then I had nothing more to give.

I hit the bear’s foot and it went through like a knife splitting water. I was shocked. Before it even noticed, it had one leg fewer. It went berserk again. This time, its rage was extreme. It roared so loud that I simply stopped hearing. I could only hear some faint high-pitched sound. I was about to run, when the bear somehow grabbed me with its other backpaw and threw me forward. I tried misty stepping midair, but it didn’t work. I don’t know why. The mana wouldn’t build. When I was close, it caught me in its mouth. It was already the most painful sensation I ever had in my life, and then he threw me away towards the trees. I felt like a baseball about to meet the bat. The tree I hit was yanked from the ground and we both fell to the floor. For a second time in this fight, I thought I was dying. This time, though, I was fairly certain this was it. I lost my right arm and a part of my side. You don’t return from that.

I looked at the beautiful Morgan one last time and prayed for her success. I prayed I would not die in vain. I reflected on my previous thoughts, on how I wished not to die a virgin. How shallow it all felt. How inane. If I saved a village in this life I would have died proud. Someone would get to grow up, someone would return home to their wife instead of dying, Morgan would get to live, and it would all be because of me, as long as Morgan succeeds.

I suddenly felt weirdly weightless. In front of me I saw a cross and on it was a thin brown man with a brown beard and a head full of curls. His hands and feet were bleeding, but he was giving me a big smile. It was Jesus, and he also thought I did good. He stepped out of the cross, walked to me, barefoot, and kissed my brow. All the energy of the blessing he gave me, the one I already forgot about, somehow coalesced into something and instead of pain and numbness I started feeling… itchy? Morgan was looking at me with a surprised expression. I could suddenly feel my arm, I was whole again.

Morgan screamed. “Get the hell away from there, it’s about to start!”

I got up, boosted my legs and started running and misty stepping away from the giant wave of earth that was moving towards the bear and I. I was out of it barely in time, but the bear, crippled as it was, was hit by the wave head on. It looked like a bear caught in the headlights.

I fell on the forest floor. Morgan ran up to me, plopped down next to me and gave me the most fiery passionate kiss I ever received in my entire life.